~ letters from novelist to world. the rest at kellysimmonsbooks.com.

Dear Chamber of Commerce President,

You. Yes, you. You with the boundless energy. Enough to run a business and an organization, and still coach your sons’ soccer team. Always smiling, always cajoling, the customers loved you, trusted you. Who wouldn’t?

You hired people on instinct, you said, not on experience, not on age.

What did you see in me at age 15? Energy, intelligence? Or did you see in me the shyness, the uncertainty, that would make me freeze in confusion when you rubbed up against me in the dark back stairway? Turning a tight corner into a do-si-do that always ended in a rough full frontal “hug” up against the damp wall, a move I had no vocabulary word for.